A former executive at the college financial aid startup Frank has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for helping founder Charlie Javice defraud JPMorgan Chase into buying the company for $175 million.
Olivier Amar, Frank's former chief growth officer, received 68 months in prison on Wednesday from US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan.
The judge said Amar played a crucial role in creating false data that misled the nation's largest bank into thinking the startup had millions of users.
"Although you were not the instigator of the fraud or the person who made the most misrepresentations, you were a key part of it," Judge Hellerstein told Amar during sentencing.
The decision follows Charlie Javice's own sentencing in September, where she received 85 months in prison for masterminding the same scheme.
According to the NYPost, prosecutors said the two conspired to make Frank look far more successful than it was, faking records to show 4.25 million student customers when the company actually had fewer than 300,000.
Founded in 2017, Frank was once praised for helping students and parents simplify the college financial aid process.
But when JPMorgan was negotiating its acquisition in 2021, prosecutors said Amar and Javice bought real names from data brokers to make up fake customer lists.
🚨 BREAKING 🚨: @jpmorgan's $175M Deal Just Got Even Worse 😬
— Sam Boboev (@samboboev) November 4, 2025
JPMorgan says Charlie Javice’s legal bills didn’t just cover her defense — they also covered hotel room upgrades.
In a court filing this week, the bank said Javice and her co-defendant, Olivier Amar, ran up an… pic.twitter.com/72QxYKhiwA
Olivier Amar Sentenced in $175M JPMorgan Scam
The false data convinced JPMorgan that Frank had a large, engaged user base that could be turned into future bank customers. After the deal closed, the truth came out, and the bank shut the platform down.
Before learning his sentence, Amar became emotional, saying he was "deeply saddened" by the impact of the fraud.
"I'm heartbroken by the suffering caused in the aftermath of Frank's downfall," he said. He also expressed regret that the company's mission to help students afford college had ended in scandal.
Prosecutors argued Amar should serve at least six years in prison, calling him "intimately involved" in the deception.
His defense team had pushed for no jail time, saying he did not engineer the fraud and had already lost his career and reputation.
The Montreal native also faces deportation after serving his sentence. In addition to prison, Amar must pay $223 million in restitution, which includes $54 million in legal fees JPMorgan was forced to cover under employment contracts, AP News reported.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon later described the purchase of Frank as a "huge mistake." The bank is now asking a Delaware court to stop paying Amar's and Javice's legal bills, which it says have reached a "breathtaking" $115 million.
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